Episode 5. The Suspicious Sorcerer’s Proposal
“Before I help you, you must pay a price.”
“If I can see my child again, I’ll do anything.”
“If someone appears who knows that you have returned to the past, you must grant that person one wish.”
“One wish?”
I wanted to ask more about “that person,” but the man spoke quickly.
“Of course, I cannot tell you anything about them. All you need to decide is when you want to return to the past.”
I wanted to go back immediately.
What if the sorcerer changed his mind and disappeared?
“Send me back right now, please.”
“As you wish.”
His answer was too calm, as if he firmly believed I would pay the price.
I had to ask,
“Wait. Do you really believe… I’ll pay that price properly?”
“Lady Riley, you will have to meet that person.”
His voice was filled with certainty.
I couldn’t guess what he was hiding, and while I was silent, he spoke again, as if to ease my worries.
“Don’t worry. That meeting won’t cause much trouble.”
Then he changed the subject, as if avoiding the question.
“You don’t need to do much to return to the past.”
“…Alright.”
“Just lie down, close your eyes, and count to one hundred in your mind. When you open them again, you’ll be in the past.”
“I understand.”
I lay down on the bed and thought to myself,
“Am I being too easily fooled by a strange man? I’ve never heard of such a spell before…”
But I was so heartbroken I no longer cared.
Even if this man had evil intentions… even if I died here, it didn’t matter.
Maybe I would even welcome it—an easier death was better than living through endless pain.
To die by my own hands required a suffering just as great as the pain of living. That was my reality.
Then, suddenly, someone touched my hand.
It was the sorcerer.
I was startled, but I didn’t pull away. His warm hand closed around mine, strangely comforting.
“There’s one last thing I want to say.”
“What is it?”
“Be happy. I want to see you happy.”
“…Are we going to meet again?”
“If fate allows, why not?”
He whispered,
“Enough talk. Begin counting.”
So I did, in my mind.
“1… 30… 61, 62… 66.”
At that point, a mysterious force surrounded my body. My senses began to fade.
I could no longer feel my skin. The wind disappeared. No scents, no sounds.
Finally, even my hearing vanished into total silence.
I couldn’t keep counting anymore.
“When I open my eyes again, the world will be turned upside down.”
I just knew it.
The man stared at Riley’s face as she lay there with closed eyes.
Light began to glow from their joined hands. It grew larger and brighter, wrapping around her entire body.
The power of the spell made him stagger, sweat dripping from his forehead.
Sending someone back into the past…
Even for a powerful sorcerer like him, it was a life-risking magic.
He had cast a spell that could harm his own life.
“Phew…”
At last, he pulled back his hood, revealing his hidden face:
jet-black hair, darker than night, pale skin, red lips, and long lashes that trembled with every blink.
A dangerously beautiful man.
He gently stroked Riley’s dry cheeks and murmured, with a pure voice very different from before.
“Riley.”
He had disguised his voice earlier to deceive her.
“We’ll meet again soon.”
His lips curved into a smile.
The cold wind of the Ramsey Empire stung more than expected, though it was only across the sea.
Standing on the deck, Henderson pulled his coat tighter and exhaled into the air. His eyes stayed fixed on the horizon.
The Lopez Empire—his homeland—was only a day’s voyage away, but today it felt terribly far.
Perhaps because she came to mind. Riley.
She had always been weak, her heart frail since childhood. She hated the cold.
Now, after losing Eddie, she must be even weaker. He worried she might collapse again.
On the day Eddie died, he heard she fainted several times.
Regret gnawed at him. He should never have left her behind at the duchy’s estate.
Even if the emperor had ordered him away, he should have stayed by her side longer.
Self-blame filled him.
He felt worthless: a duke in name only, the emperor’s hound.
Eight years had passed since he became duke, yet nothing had changed.
The courtiers once scorned him as an illegitimate child, so he had worked tirelessly to manage his lands.
The emperor disapproved of his marriage to Princess Riley, so Henderson obeyed everything to gain recognition.
He became the emperor’s envoy to Ramsey. He even distanced himself from his wife because the emperor demanded it.
“Just one year. Stay away from Riley for one year. If she still loves you after that, I’ll stop opposing you. Consider it my approval.”
Henderson had agreed, believing Riley’s love would never fade.
But now, with their child gone, he regretted that decision for the first time.
“What have I been doing all this time?”
At Eddie’s funeral, he couldn’t even hold Riley or comfort her.
He wanted so badly to embrace her and whisper, ‘Don’t cry. I’m here. Eddie is in a better place.’
But he couldn’t.
The emperor’s spy—“the Eye of the Emperor”—was always watching him.
The one-year trial was almost over. He couldn’t throw it all away now.
He thought he could ask Riley’s forgiveness once the year ended, once he was officially accepted.
He would beg for years, for decades, if he had to.
“I only hope her love hasn’t changed…”
“Lord Henderson. The wind is too cold. Please go inside.”
It was the emperor’s knight, Hoover Donovan, his assigned “assistant”—but in truth, his watcher.
“Yes.”
Henderson stepped away from the deck. He wanted everything to end quickly: the one-year promise, his grief, and this cruel distance from Riley.
Just before entering the cabin, he glanced once more at the sea.
Beyond the endless blue, the faint outline of land appeared.
The Lopez Empire. Home.
He worried about what kind of face Riley would be wearing when he saw her again.
